Bonds of Justice (18 page)

Marsha Langholm didn’t answer. Sophia did. “It is logical, in a way,” she said. “Pure Psy believes that if the Net is ‘closed’ again, then Psy power will grow to the extent that our race will eventually be able to exterminate the changelings and humans both.”

“Even if such an act means a loss of power—of personnel,” Marsha Langholm added, “in the short term.”

It was the most cold-blooded description of murder Max had ever heard.

 

Dorian looked up from the computer where he was doing something that disappeared the instant Sascha and Lucas walked into the second subbasement of the DarkRiver building.

“He knows,” Sascha whispered to her co-conspirator.

Dorian grinned at Lucas. “So how mad are you?”

“If you didn’t have a mate, I’d consider making you a eunuch,” Lucas said, watching Sascha walk over to stand on Dorian’s other side, her hand on the back of the sentinel’s chair.

Turning, Dorian angled his head, asking for permission. When Sascha smiled, he pressed his ear against her belly, touching his hand protectively to the swell. If any man outside the pack had dared to do that, Lucas would’ve torn him to shreds with his bare claws. But this was Dorian, Sascha’s favorite sentinel, and one of the best friends Lucas had ever had.

His panther sat up in inquisitive interest when Sascha laughed at something Dorian whispered to the baby. “Hey,” the sentinel said in a louder tone, “you never know. Kid could come out wanting to know all about advanced martial arts.”

Sascha messed up the sentinel’s distinctive white-blond hair. “According to Vaughn,
she’s
going to be a painter, he’s sure of it. According to Clay,
he’s
going to be a sentinel-born. According to Hawke—”

Lucas growled at the wolf alpha’s name.

Laughing, Sascha continued. “According to Hawke,
her
purpose in life is going to be to make Lucas insane. He’s already bought Lucas a woolen hat—for when he tears his hair out,” she explained at Dorian’s confused look.

Lucas felt his lips tug upward at her gentle teasing. “You know what I can’t wait for? That wolf to get his comeuppance. I’m going to throw a party when he gets mated—then take a front-row seat while his mate makes mincemeat out of him.”

Sascha’s expression softened, and Lucas could guess the direction of her thoughts. Accepted knowledge said the wolf alpha would never mate, but things had shifted in the past year. It was beginning to look as if there
might
be a chance for the SnowDancer. And no matter how much they antagonized each other, Lucas would never wish anything but good luck to the other male on this one point. Because when it came to mating . . .

His eyes met those of the cardinal Psy who was his mate, his heartbeat. “Stop flirting with Dorian and come over here.”

Taking his hand, she moved to fit herself against his side. “I wouldn’t dare flirt with Dorian. Ashaya would turn me into chopped liver.”

Dorian gave a smug grin. “My mate thinks I’m the most gorgeous leopard she ever saw.”

“Show us the footage before your head explodes,” Lucas muttered, but his own cat was grinning to see Dorian so happy. The sentinel had been latent most of his life, unable to shift into leopard form. Now that he could, he did so at every opportunity. “Have you managed to catch a rabbit yet?”

A single eloquent finger. “Fuck you.”

Lucas snickered. “What about trying for a turtle?”

Dorian lunged out of the chair and went for Lucas’s throat.

Laughing, Sascha watched the two men fall to the floor. Neither had released claws, and it was obvious they weren’t doing anything much more than wrestling. Men, she thought with a fond shake of her head, turning to take Dorian’s chair.

Though her energy levels had increased over the past week or two, her ankles were persisting in their attempts to turn into miniature logs. A little bump in her stomach, a reminder that it was all worth it.
Yes,
she thought to her child
, you’re worth everything
.

She stroked her hand over her belly, keeping one eye on the two boys still rolling around on the floor.
You’re incredibly loved, my sweet baby.
The entire pack was waiting for the birth, as they did for every birth in DarkRiver. Each child was treasured, celebrated.

None would ever be rejected as flawed.

Smiling, she tapped the screen to bring up the correct files. Dorian hadn’t actually listened in on her conversation with Marsha—instead, he’d monitored the tone of her voice with one of his gadgets, ready to break down the door the instant it indicated distress. However, he’d also kept an ear on what went on in the corridor, recording it as a matter of course.

Something thumped behind her as she opened the file. “Dorian?” she said. “Is this audio only?”

“What—
umfh
!” Another thump. “Yeah. Haven’t had a chance to—”

A loud crash.

Trying to keep a stern face, she turned. “If you mess up this lab, I’ll rat you out to Ria.” Lucas’s administrative assistant had ordered all the hard-to-find equipment Dorian had specified, helped put the place in order to the last rivet and bolt.

Lucas lifted up his face, his hair messy and so gorgeous, she wanted to tumble him to the floor herself. “Aw, come on.”

“Yeah,” Dorian muttered, pushing himself up into a sitting position, his T-shirt rucked up to bare part of his muscled abdomen. “That’s just mean, siccing Ria on us.”

“She’s five feet and zero inches,” Sascha said, noting that between them, Lucas and Dorian probably outweighed and out-muscled Ria four times over. “Why are you all so scared of her?”

“You don’t know ’cause she likes you.” Getting up, Lucas held his hand down to Dorian, who took it and bounced up to his feet.

Neither looked anything but a little rumpled. Cute, she thought, they looked cute. And they’d snarl if she even dared utter the word. “I’d like to listen to this audio now.” Her joy dimmed. “Someone’s trying to hurt my mother.”

Lucas squeezed the back of her neck in silent reassurance, his love a protective shield around her. When Dorian queried her words, Lucas gave him a short précis of events—the sentinel touched his fingers to her cheek before turning to fix something in the audio file. “I was monitoring the live feed the whole time and heard nothing suspicious, but I was only listening out for threats to Sascha. Here we go.”

There was a whole lot of nothing, and more nothing on the tape.

“New plan,” Dorian said after several minutes, “I’m going to skip to any incidents where the noise level went over the baseline.”

There were several noises that made the computer stop, people coming and going. Then, a bare few minutes before Sascha left Marsha’s apartment, the sound of footsteps, a knock, a door being opened.

“I see you received my message,” said a male voice, with a slight French accent. “Come in. The papers are sitting on the coffee table where you left them earlier today.”

“Ah, fuck,” Lucas muttered, thrusting a hand through already tousled hair. “If that’s what I think it is, Max is going to be pissed.”

Max wasn’t pissed when Lucas called him. He was beyond pissed. “Damn it, Luc. You should’ve told me this when we met.”

“It’s evidence you wouldn’t otherwise have,” the DarkRiver alpha said as Sophia got up and closed the door to the interview room, ensuring privacy. “And for the record, I didn’t know. I’ve already snarled at the two culprits for you.”

Recognizing the peace offering for what it was, Max blew out his breath. “Can you send the segment through to my phone? I’ll pick up the original later.”

“I’ll get Dorian to do it. And, Cop”—his voice dropped—“you need us, we’re there. Don’t hesitate.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Closing the phone, Max told Sophia what the DarkRiver alpha had shared.

Sophia tucked her hair behind her ear, baring the marks on her face, marks that were becoming intimately familiar to Max. “They take the protection of their mates seriously.”

“Do you think it’s only changelings who do that?” Max raised a hand, waited until she leaned a wary fraction toward him. Then, his eyes on the sweet curve of her lips, he danced his fingers over her temple, the edge of her cheek, and along her jaw.

Sophia’s heart was a stampede in her chest, her skin prickling with a near-painful heat, but she didn’t move away. And when Max stepped even closer, until her breasts brushed his chest with every breath, she found her free hand rising to press against the warm resilience of his pectorals.

“I want skin,” she dared confess, though she wasn’t certain she’d survive the sensual impact.

“Yeah?” Max bent his head, his breath hot against her cheek as he stroked his lips over her skin in a slow, sweet glide, his hand closing over her hip in a grip so proprietary, it felt akin to a brand.

“Max.”
Her legs trembled with the effort to stay in place, to soak in the feel of him—hard and strong, an erotic temptation.

“Enough.” Max stepped back. “Next time, I get your mouth.”

Gripping the back of a chair, she swallowed, tried to find her voice. It was gone, lost in the rush of thunder that was her bloodstream. Her eyes met Max’s again, and she saw the glitter in his gaze, saw, too, the skin pulled tight over his jaw. “It can’t affect you like it does me,” she finally managed to say, her throat raw. “You must be used to it.”

“So another man would work just as well for you?”

The answer spilled out of her. “Only you.” A dangerous confession, but Sophia didn’t have time to play games. Bitterness threatened to rise in a sharp, acidic burst, but she crushed it, determined not to give in to useless anger. “Only ever you.”

Max sucked in a breath, swearing low in his throat. “Good—because I sure as hell am not the sharing kind.” With that harsh statement of claim—and she understood that that was exactly what it was—he turned to the door. “I’ll be back in a second.”

 

Max leaned against the wall outside the meeting room, his breath coming in jagged gulps. The cool air did little to clear the scent of Sophia from his lungs. She was nothing he’d ever expected, everything he wanted.

And she was Psy.

Just now, when he’d touched her, when she’d touched
him
, her eyes had drowned in black. No iris, no pupil, no whites, nothing but an endless spread of black. It had shaken him, not because he was afraid—but because it was a reminder of the gulf between them. He’d seen the PsyNet in her eyes, a vast emptiness that he could never enter, and she could never leave.

Sascha Duncan did
, his mind whispered.

The elevator doors opened on the heels of that thought, disgorging Quentin Gareth, one of the two men Max and Sophia hadn’t been able to initially identify on the security footage.

“Detective Shannon.” The male’s prematurely silver hair glinted under the overhead lights. “I was told you had questions for me.”

“Thanks for coming.” Pushing off the wall, he opened the door to find Sophia sitting in a chair on the other side of the table.

The distance did nothing to eliminate the thrumming tension between them, so thick and hotly sexual that Max wondered how Gareth could miss it.

“Detective,” the man said as soon as they were seated, “if this could be as fast as possible, I’d appreciate it. I’m scheduled to catch an airjet to Dubai.”

Max was aware of Gareth’s travel plans, but unlike with human criminals, Psy—especially Psy this high up in the power structure—were far less of a flight risk. Nikita could track Quentin Gareth across the PsyNet if it came down to it. “How about you just run us through your meeting with the victim,” he said in a tone he kept casual. Maybe Psy didn’t feel, but from what he’d seen, they were very, very good at reading and manipulating those who did.

“Our meeting was prearranged, but Edward reconfirmed once he returned from Cairo. The meeting covered a number of general ideas for expansion—we wanted to talk before I got caught up with the Dubai negotiations and he with his own projects.”

Responding to Max’s questions, Gareth told them he knew of no reason why anyone would’ve targeted Edward Chan. Max ended the interview on that point. “We need deep background checks on all four possibles,” he said to Sophia after Gareth left. “My gut says Marsha is clean, but she could have a skeleton in her closet that leaves her open to blackmail.”

“I’m already working on it.” Her voice was husky, a rough caress, a reminder of the sensual fever that had almost consumed them earlier. “I have contacts in Justice who can do it under the radar.”

Max clenched his hand on the arm of his chair. “You know,” he murmured, needing to release the tension in some way, “I think this table is strong enough to take your weight. You never did tell me what you thought of boardroom sex.”

She jerked up her head, a slight flush on her cheeks. But she didn’t back down. “I think we’d need a stronger lock on the door—and I’m not sure I’d enjoy being pounded against a hard surface.”

The word “pounded” acted like an aphrodisiac, sending his good intentions all to hell. “Then you can ride me,” he said, his cock a steel rod in his pants. “The view”—he ran his gaze over her breasts—“would make me more than happy to be pounded.”

“Max,” Sophia said in a very tight voice, “if you don’t behave, I’ll—”

It was probably for the best that Andre Tulane, the final individual on the surveillance footage, arrived then. He gave them the same basic story as Quentin Gareth.